


The Battle's Almost Won

by abvj



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: AU Post 5x24, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abvj/pseuds/abvj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>After Seattle, the next time Lexie Grey sees Mark Sloan is when she is just two weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday. </i> In the immediate aftermath of George's death, Lexie receives an offer she can't refuse from Mass Gen and leaves Seattle and Mark behind. This story takes place five years later, when a chance meeting reignites feelings both parties thought had long since been laid to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU after 5x24, and by that I mean that Lexie leaves quickly thereafter, so any further plot points of GA are not taken into account here. Thank you to leobrat and justforyoudear for the betas. 
> 
> For earnmysong. She knows why.

There is a conference in Boston and Lexie goes because it is sort of her job to do so now _and_ because her boss is – to put it nicely – forcing her. The frustration isn’t due to the fact that she minds a pseudo paid mini-vacation in the middle of a work-week, but instead that she would much rather be taking care of patients rather than sitting in lectures for what feels like seventy-two hours straight on _how_ to take care of patients. Of course, there is also the matter that the three-day, evidence based practice research symposium culminates with Lexie and her mentor giving a summation of their findings. 

Before some of the greatest minds the medical industry has to offer. 

Which is, well, first and foremost it is an honor and privilege. It is also extremely intimidating. The Lexie Grey of here and now is not very easily intimidated, but still her stomach rolls at the mere thought of standing before a bunch of people that were both more qualified and much more intelligent than she is. 

She is on what feels like hour eighteen – but in reality is only hour six – returning from lunch, coffee in one hand and her blackberry in the other when she runs smack dab into somebody else, _hard_. She is too busy answering the million and one text-messages her residents have sent her instead of giving her full attention to just where exactly she is headed. Because Lexie never developed her mother’s grace and instead possesses her father’s distinct lack of it, she manages to spill her brand new macchiato all over somebody’s crisp, white linen shirt in the process. 

On reflex, Lexie reaches out, face a picture of pure mortification as she tries to blot the brown stain with the sleeve of her jacket, mumbling _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry_ over and over again before realizing she is just making matters worse. The stain just keeps spreading and the edge of her coat is now soaked nearly all the way through. For all of her intelligence, Lexie has never quite learned how to excel at stopping while she is ahead. 

The man laughs, reaching out to still her hands with his own, and when she looks upwards, she is hit with a wave of vertigo, the entire world tilting on its axis around her. 

After Seattle, the next time Lexie Grey sees Mark Sloan is when she is just two weeks shy of her thirtieth birthday. 

 

 

 

“I heard you went into plastics.” 

They are standing near the complimentary refreshment table, Mark dipping napkins into a glass of water and trying to make the very large stain on what Lexie can only imagine is a very expensive shirt less noticeable. It’s not working. With an arched eyebrow, she reaches out again to help him, only to pull back, stung, when his fingers graze her own. She breathes and laughs awkwardly, turns to watch people mull about around them, and checks her watch. The next lecture starts in five minutes. 

“Yeah, well, somebody once told me that it wasn’t all rhinoplasties and boob jobs,” she jokes, or at least tries to joke because it falls flat. Mark still smiles, giving up on his shirt and sliding his jacket back over his shoulders in an effort to cover the stain. It doesn’t work either; the stain seeps out from underneath his left lapel. He motions with his thumb to the auditorium behind his shoulder, and without thought she falls in line beside him as they make their way in that direction. 

“How are you, Lexie?” Mark asks after a moment. His voice is soft, kind, so utterly familiar and she breathes and takes a small step back, placing some much needed distance between them. 

Still, after all this time, he has this affect on her. Lexie isn’t quite sure what to make of that. Isn’t quite sure what to make of anything – her head is spinning, congested with memories she hadn’t allowed herself to remember, hadn’t allowed herself to indulge in quite some time. Lexie’s first, initial thought is that he looks good. He looks rested, fit, still graying around the temples, but essentially the same as when she last saw him five years ago. Her immediate, just as important second thought is she really wishes she would have put some make-up on or worn something other than the suit she’s had since her medical school interview that is about a size and half too big. 

Still, she smiles. “I’m doing well. Really well, actually. You?” 

“The same. Still at Mass Gen?” 

“More or less. Still at Seattle Grace?” 

He grins, and some things never change, she finds, because something settles deep in the pit of her belly in response, her ears tinged red along the edges. “More or less,” he says. 

There are only two seats available – one on the far right of the room and another on the far left. They pause on the outskirts of the audience, watching as the lecturer starts to make his way to the podium at center stage. There is a short span of time where they just sort of look each other and the whole thing is just entirely way too surreal for Lexie – seeing Mark Sloan here, in her city, years and what feels like lifetimes after she knew him. It is almost like something out of the movies, really, the whole meet-cute with the music swelling in the background and just the right dash of awkwardness that would make anyone with a heart cringe. 

Nodding her head to the left she says quietly, “I’m going to go this way,” because self-preservation has been a way of life for so long that it’s all she knows, all she breathes, and putting actual tangible distance between them is the only way Lexie knows how to keep Mark Sloan from muddying the well-defined boundaries of her life. She takes a moment to pause, allowing her eyes to sweep over him one last time. Makes a memory of him like she used to. Sighing softly, mostly to herself, she says, “It was really great seeing you, Mark.” 

His grin is almost wistful. “Maybe we’ll see each other after?” 

Lexie just smiles, mumbling a quiet and half-hearted _sure_ before walking away. 

 

 

 

(“You ever think of getting out here?” Sadie asked her once. 

She took Lexie out for a drink before she left Seattle behind for good, and Lexie smiled softly in that quiet way of hers, fingering the beer bottle between her fingers and just shrugged. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, feigning innocence because it was always on her mind, really, the idea of leaving, even if she would never admit it aloud. 

“I mean,” Sadie drew out the word and traced a lone finger over the rim of her glass. They had been there for an hour, maybe two, and Lexie’s shoulders were tense from lack of sleep, from sheer exhaustion and she really, really just wanted to go home. Sadie had asked, though, all sheepish smiles and a gentle touch to her forearm and Lexie had a hard time saying no to people, and really, what was the harm? “I mean,” she repeated firmly, “there is more to life than living in Meredith Grey’s shadow.” 

It’s kind of uneventful, that meeting. It was pretty much akin to all the other nights she had at Joe’s with Sadie. But when Lexie looks back on it somewhere down the line (and she will, mind you, because hindsight is always twenty-twenty and there are some lessons that are always harder to learn than others) she will remember first, always, the way Sadie had smiled then. How the curve of her lips was tight and brittle, and without mirth. Lexie will look back on it and remember how chilling it had been to watch the warmth flow completely out of somebody in a five-second time span. 

They day after, Lexie envied Sadie a little in some far off and removed type of way. Envied her for leaving, for moving on, for forging paths on her on terms, and in her own way. But it that moment it’s nothing. Lexie pressed her lips into a thin line and didn’t quite understand yet what any of it meant. 

Sadie threw back the rest of her drink in a single swig and pushed the glass away from her as she reached for her jacket and shrugged it on. 

“I really, _really_ hope it takes you less time to figure that out than it did me, Lexie,” she said quietly, throwing a few bills onto the countertop and grabbing her purse. 

And that was that.)

 

 

 

Of course, Lexie spends the next three hours thinking about him, about them, about Seattle and all the things she had worked so hard to bury and forget over the past five years. 

The lecturer drones on and on about things Lexie would normally find fascinating, but now tunes out as she remembers things she wishes she didn’t. Like, for example, the heavy weight of his lips against hers, the feel of his hands and mouth between her legs, the subtle weight of him as he pressed over her, against her, inside of her. It’s too much all at once – the remembering, him being here, and she squirms in her seat, crinkles the program between her fingers. 

Lexie turns in his direction, just once, not all that surprised to see him returning the gesture. 

He smiles slowly and she can count the lines on his face near the corner of his mouth from all the way across the room from memory alone. There are some things you can never forget. No matter how hard you may try, some things just have a way of sticking, imprinting themselves on every fiber of your being. 

Mark Sloan is apparently one of them. 

Smiling tightly in return, Lexie shifts in her seat once more to get comfortable. She compartmentalizes and files away all things related to Mark and tries to focus all of her attention on the lecturer and his heroic and groundbreaking movements in the arena of plastics. 

It doesn’t work. 

 

 

 

After the lecture, she lingers in the entryway. There is a friend of a friend from Hopkins who she knows in passing and he's talking about dinner and some drinks, but all Lexie can focus on is the hard line of Mark's shoulders out of the corner of her eye. He's surrounded by a sea of people – faces she recognizes, some she doesn't. Mark has been in the news lately because of his efforts in advancing and mainstreaming intricate techniques in burn grafting. Lexie would be lying if she said she hadn't kept up with his work, if she denied being able to recite his research paper from memory or didn't have a million and one facets of it she wanted to pick his brain over.

Mark turns suddenly, meeting her eyes and she startles, jerks her attention back to the young, handsome doctor standing in front of her. She tries instead to focus on him, but gets lost in her own thoughts again when she tries to remember his name and fails miserably. He's been talking and talking, but Lexie couldn't even begin to say about what. Instead, she nods absently, lips curling when appropriate. Her smile widens across her mouth involuntarily when she sees Mark excuse himself and make his way over to her.

"So drinks?" The cute handsome doctor from Hopkins whose name she cannot remember asks, and Lexie stutters a bit, surprised. She has never been more thankful for Mark than she is when he strolls over to her, forcing himself between her and Handsome Doctor From Hopkins and mumbling _you ready to go?_ Lexie beams at him, offering an apology to the other guy whilst making empty promises of another time.

When they are out of earshot, Mark laughs softly. Mumbles, "Looked like you could use an out."

While she is mostly the same person she was in Seattle, it has been years since Mark has known her, and there has been some shifting and subtle changes along the way. Lexie doesn't say _thank you_ but instead _I had it covered_ with an accompanying smile that takes a bit of the edge out of her words.

Mark nods. Says, "I realize this may be awkward and I might be stepping over some unseen line, but I'd really like to have dinner and... I don't know... catch up?"

He's hopeful, and Lexie doesn't think, doesn't take the time to second-guess herself or this before she breathes, "I know this great place."

 

 

 

(During those early weeks, when she was lonely and still horribly in love with Mark, she would call him after a hard shift or a few too many at the bar. 

Sometimes Mark would pick up and other times he wouldn’t. When he did she was hardly ever greeted with a _hello_ or some version thereof. It was always a long stretch of silence that wore her too thin, that forced her into closing her eyes just so she could imagine him, every bit of him. If she tried hard enough, she could picture him perfectly – in the on call room or the apartment she heard from Meredith or Derek that he bought, the one with three bedrooms and wide-open spaces for the family and life he wanted with her and she hadn’t been ready to give. 

During those early weeks, Lexie would allow the longing and regret to get the best of her. She would call, dial his number from memory and allow the silence to comfort her, allow the sound of his breathing to settle deep under her skin, into her bones and wait for him to say something, _anything _. Lexie would wait for him to say her name the way he used to: the two syllables strung together with a sigh, the left corner of his mouth twitching upwards, and allow the familiar weight of it to settle near the base of her spine.__

__Sometimes they would talk and sometimes they wouldn’t._ _

__Until one night he answered, his voice tired and hardened by the distance between them as he breathed her name in lieu of a greeting._ _

__“You have to stop doing this,” he said. “You need to stop calling… it’s just… it is too much. It just hurts too much, okay?”_ _

__Lexie reached up and pinched the bridge of her nose. The tequila mixed with bile in the back of her throat and she swallowed around it, turning onto her side and drawing her knees to her chest as she curled deeper into herself._ _

__“I know. I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she repeated. Her words slur embarrassingly. “You’re right. You are absolutely right.”_ _

__There was silence and tears stinging her eyes and she reached up with her free hand to wipe at them angrily. Blamed it all on the alcohol and not something else entirely._ _

__Sighing again, Mark said, “You left for a reason, Lexie. Doing this it’s just… it’s a step backwards and it’s just –”_ _

__“Too much?” she supplied for him._ _

__He paused before breathing, “Yeah.”_ _

__“Okay,” she swallowed, nodding to the empty air around her. “ _Okay_.” _ _

__There was silence, again, and Lexie heard it pounding in her ears, the finality of the moment palpable, mixing with the acridness in the back of her throat as the room and world continued to spin on their axes around that moment with him. She remembered things in spurts – images of the time they spent together bright and hazy at once, the way he loved her wholly and unashamedly and how she wasn’t ready, didn’t quite understand how to return the gesture._ _

__“Goodbye, Lexie,” he said quietly, his parting gift, and before she had the opportunity to reply the line went silent.)_ _

__

__

__

__She takes him to this little hole in the wall restaurant she discovered during those first few weeks in Boston. It's nothing fancy, just a nice place to come to when she is looking for a good meal and cheap booze. It’s familiar to her after all of these years, and everyone knows her by name – as soon as she walks in there is a round of _hellos_ rattled off in her direction. She answers every single one in kind. The hostess immediately sits her in her favorite spot near the back, the one just far enough from the bar so she could hear herself think, but close enough so she could watch the drunken shenanigans that start during happy hour and continue well into the night._ _

__Jamie, her favorite waitress and close friend, brings menus and Lexie’s customary rum and diet. They've known each other for years now, know each other in the confines of this bar and the real world, and Jamie can usually tell when Lexie is in need of her regular standby or something harder, something the burns her throat on the way down and promptly takes the edge of thereafter. Because Jamie knows Lexie, her smile is wide and teasing as she looks between Lexie and Mark with approval. Mark orders a beer, and as Jamie walks away, she gives Lexie a non-overt display of approval in the from of an exaggerated thumbs up and mouthing_ he's cute _as she walks backwards towards the bar.

With her face flushing slightly, Lexie resists the urge to release the laugh bubbling in the back of her throat.

It's awkward at first, being here with him. Her bravado starts to fall and Lexie starts to second-guess herself. There have been other men since Mark. Some lasted longer than others, but she's never brought them here, to this place, to this part of her life. Lexie thinks it is entirely way too telling that she did so with Mark tonight without thought. He's back in her life for less than twelve hours with no intention of staying and he's already seeping into the crevices of it that have remained untouched for so long.

After Jamie takes their order and brings Mark his beer, she spends a short time conducting a thorough yet heartfelt interrogation that lasts just long enough to make both Mark and Lexie uncomfortable. After, when they are left to their own devices, there is a lull of silence that stretches Lexie's nerves thin, has her shifting in her seat and crumbling her napkin between her fingers just to give her hands something to do. But when Mark starts asking questions and Lexie starts replying with some of her own, things start to feel more natural, less awkward. She finally gets to ask him about his research, trying so very hard not to gush over how enthralled she is by it all. Mark gets riled up over it, all loud tones and wide, open arms; her million questions and his overly detailed but appreciated responses fill time during dinner and well past paying the check. 

"So," he starts, then stops, reaching up to rub at the beard on his chin like he always used to when he was thinking about what to say and just exactly how to say it. "Have you been seeing anyone?" The words leave his mouth in a rush, like he's been waiting to ask her that very question since they sat down at the table more than four hours ago. She thinks he probably has. 

Lexie smiles and looks away, draws the tip of her finger over the rim of the glass of water she switched to two hours ago. "No," she says. "Not really." Before she loses her nerve she adds, "You?" almost as an hopeful afterthought.

Mark's grin is nearly blinding. "No. Not really."

To say that things feel inevitable after that would be an understatement.

 

 

 

He walks the few blocks over to the hospital with her, because he has always been that sort of guy with her. Even if he had tried to hide it under the women and talk that screamed otherwise. The conversation eventually dies and after all they are left with are the shuffling sounds of their shoes against the pavement and the swinging of arms. His hand lingers near hers, fingers brushing fingers every so often as they walk, and Lexie hates herself, just a little, for how much she wants him. How much she wants to fall back into old patterns with him and for how often today she has imagined leaning in, breathing him in, and just connecting her mouth with his.

Lexie hates herself because she was never this easy before him. 

She was also never this easy after him either, but she doesn't really like to think about that.

When the hospital finally looms in the distance, she starts walking a single step ahead, putting some distance between them without trying to make it noticeable. If he notices, he doesn't react, only increases his pace to keep up, to stay in place by her side.

History serves as a guide and she knows where this is very probably heading: his hotel room, between his sheets, the familiar arching of backs. If she's honest with herself, Lexie would fully admit that she isn't completely opposed to the idea. It wasn't a lie when she told Mark she wasn't seeing anyone, but it wasn't the complete truth either. There is an ER resident that has nice hands and a very nice mouth and she allows him to show her a good time every so often. It's just sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Absolutely zero strings attached. 

She and Mark approach the proverbial fork in the road where she heads to the hospital and eventually her apartment, he goes right, towards his hotel. She thinks about calling Cute ER Resident once she is safely away from Mark and all that he represents – her old life, their old life, all of the things she convinced herself she didn't want once upon a time. She could call him just to get it out of her system, to keep herself from making a mistake that is destined to leave a lasting, irrevocable impact because sex with Mark, while great, could never just be sex. Experience has taught her that.

Which is why when they reach the intersection where she needs to keep going straight and he needs to veer off in her own direction, she doesn't linger, doesn’t allow him to move in for a hug or a kiss on the cheek. Lexie definitely does not allow herself to move in and brush her lips against his just so she can indulge in the very thing she has wanted to do since she sat down across from him at dinner. 

Instead, she mumbles, "It's late," and allows the words to speak for themselves.

Mark nods. "Yeah, you're right." He jerks his thumb over his shoulder, shoves his other hand deep into his pocket. "It is late. And we've got an early morning tomorrow. But, I'd, uh," he stops, laughs lowly to himself. He's nervous and it shows and she kind of loves it and hates it at the same time. "I'd like to do this again. Tomorrow, maybe?"

Lexie thinks better of it, but still replies, "Yeah. I'd like that," because her heart has always had serious problems keeping up with her head.

They say their goodbyes and she watches him walk away for a short moment before continuing on, one last linger glance thrown over her shoulder as she watches the sight of his retreating back. Her fingers unconsciously reach for her cell phone, thumb scrolling through her contacts, hovering over the Cute ER Resident’s name. She sends him a text. It is a pointless and transparent, _what are you doing right now_?

As soon as she clicks _send_ she regrets it immediately, and clicks the phone off to subvert his reply. Instead, continuing past the hospital to her apartment, Lexie spends the rest of the night doing exactly what she had planned to do before Mark Sloan strolled back into her life: charting, practicing her presentation, and checking to make sure her residents hadn't managed to screw anything up too horribly in her absence.


	2. Chapter 2

When she wakes, it is daylight outside and it takes Lexie a full moment to process the fact that she is not at her apartment and in the comfort of her own bed, but instead in the on call room with a familiar face looming over her.

"You told me to wake you at seven," Becca says. She's chewing on a breakfast burrito that makes Lexie's stomach turn and has two coffees in hand. She shoves one of them towards Lexie who continues to ignore her while she tries to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "It is now seven-fifteen. You yelled at me the first two times I tried to wake you."

Groaning, Lexie sits up, holding her weight on an arm that is still half-asleep as she moves some of the files she fell asleep reading off of her and onto a neat pile on the floor. When she finally takes the coffee Becca is still offering with an outstretched hand, she doesn’t wait before taking a large sip, humming in appreciation when she tastes the skim milk and amaretto. Becca knows her all too well and slides into a chair near the corner, pulling her feet underneath her as Lexie searches for her scattered belongings and slips her shoes back on.

"You are the only person I know that comes here, on their own volition, on their day off."

"Kessler does it all the time," Lexie replies absently, sliding files into her tote bag and clicking her cell phone back on. It beeps a few times, notifying her of a few unread text messages. She scrolls through them as Becca starts talking again, thumbs scrolling over the keys as she replies to the most pertinent ones. She ignores the three from Cute ER Resident. 

"While your mentor is, in fact, the most brilliant man in plastics on the east coast, do you really want to compare yourself to him? His life is wreck besides, you know, being in the consideration for the Nobel Prize that one time and everything."

Lexie shrugs. "I had to make sure my residents didn't, you know, kill anyone in my absence."

Laughing, Becca says, "Good call. They're still a little green around the edges, aren't they?"

Cracking a smile, Lexie replies, "Just a little."

"So." Becca draws out the word in a singsong-like tone that tells Lexie this conversation is going nowhere good. She immediately steels herself, searching for her jacket and turning her back to her friend. "Jamie said you brought a boy to the bar last night." Becca takes a long sip of her coffee. "She also said that he was way too cute to be Cute ER Resident that you never bring around."

"That is because Cute ER Resident is good for one thing and one thing only. Also: Jamie has a big mouth."

Jamie and Becca are roommates, have been for years. Becca was Lexie's first real friend in Boston, Jamie her second, and Lexie introduced them when Jamie decided to leave her fiancé and follow the part of her original life plan that included Harvard Law and an eventual partnership at Robins, Rogers, and Williams. Jamie waits tables to help pay the bills and already has a job lined up for when she graduates in just a few months. They are her best friends, Becca and Jamie, but that doesn't mean Lexie is willing to share certain parts of her life that she would rather keep to herself. After Seattle, Lexie became much more private, less willing to allow the personal details of her life become the topic of water cooler gossip. It wasn't that hard of adjustment because the people of Mass Gen were much more interested in saving lives than knowing everything about everyone else's. Except Becca, apparently.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder and glancing at her watch, Lexie makes her way towards the door. Becca is quick to follow and Lexie is devising exit strategies because she has forty-five minutes to shower, change her clothes, and make it back in time for the eight thirty lecture. 

"So." Becca draws out the word again and quickly sidesteps around Lexie so she is blocking the door. "Who was it?"

"No one," Lexie huffs with a roll of her eyes.

"Jamie said you two looked pretty cozy for it to be no one."

"Becca," Lexie sighs, annoyed. She reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose with the hand that wasn't holding the coffee she should have known came with strings attached.

"Lexie," Becca mocks.

"I'm seriously going to be late."

"I seriously don't care." Lexie gives her a look that simply says it is way too early for this and I am so not in the mood. Becca reads it, understands it, and waits almost a full minute before she steps to the side to let her through because she knows Lexie, knows her well enough to realize she isn’t going to break any time soon, so there is no point to pressing the issue any farther than necessary.

"Fine," she sighs. Lexie opens the door and strolls out into the hallway, mumbling hellos to all the familiar faces while simultaneously trying to escape before she can get pulled into a case or called for a second opinion. She sees Kessler in the distance, and ducks her head. "But don't think you're getting a free pass. You're not. This is just an advance five spaces type of get out of free jail card."

"I really hate your monopoly references."

"Yes, but you love me."

Lexie laughs softly as she nears the elevator.

 

 

 

By the time Lexie has finished showering, changing her clothes, and is properly caffeinated, the first presentation of the day has progressed well past opening remarks and straight into explaining the intricate details of some innovative procedure that is so complex it will never be translated into mainstream use. Naturally, there are no seats remaining because that is just her luck, really, and she is midway through an internal debate as to whether or not she should stay and stand for the next two hours or leave altogether, when her line of sight catches a figure waving to get her attention. It's Mark, of course, and Lexie's cheeks tint crimson as five different faces turn in her direction. Mark is seated right smack dab in the middle of the audience, and she is weighing her options once again – standing for two hours, leaving, or suffering through abject mortification as she crawls past twenty people just to reach the vacant seat next to him. Mark smiles at her though, and her own mouth tugging to return the gesture. The later wins out because he is looking at her _that_ way, the enthusiasm evident in the curl of his mouth, and despite her best efforts, Lexie has never, ever been able to resist the Mark Sloan charm.

Making her way towards him as quietly as possible, Lexie murmurs _so sorry_ and _excuse me_ and winces when she steps on the toes of an older lady and nearly trips over another's purse. When she is finally seated next to Mark she sighs in relief, tries to ignore the death glare she's receiving from the man four seats down whose head got in the way of her purse. 

"Here," Mark says, just low enough for her to hear as he reaches down under his chair, and presses a coffee cup into her hands. "Thought you might need this."

His fingers linger against hers briefly and their eyes lock, her mouth spreading into a slow smile that matches his. Lexie is the first to look away, mumbling her _thanks_ as she busies herself with taking a long swallow. It's still warm and she's thankful, the immediately jolt of caffeine dong much to soothe her nerves, but it is the perfect mixture of skim milk and amaretto that catches her completely off guard.

The familiarity of it all makes her heart hurt something fierce. Lexie's fingers tighten around the coffee cup in an effort to anchor herself, to pull herself back into the present and away from the onslaught of memories that always seem to hit her like a storm at the most inconvenient times. Mark shifts in his seat, closer to her, and it is too easy having him here, sitting next to her, saving her a seat in a crowded room and remembering exactly how she takes her coffee. It is too easy, and she Lexie allows herself to get lost in the facade for just a moment. She shifts closer to him too, crosses her legs so they are angled towards his. Lexie tilts her head just a fraction of in inch so she can breathe in the scent of him – shampoo, cologne, the soft scent of his aftershave that is so simply masculine – and wishes for five years ago, the requiem of the uncomplicated. She wishes for the time they shared together when they were just two strangers fumbling towards something with no real idea yet that it could never last.

Mark, always an exert at saying the right thing at the wrong time, chooses that exact moment to lean in again, his voice soft in her ear as he says, "Dinner later?"

Lexie's soft _okay_ escapes her mouth before she has a chance to stop herself.

 

 

 

(There are things she remembered more vividly than others: random moments filled with kisses and skin sliding against skin. The way his touch never failed to ignite something deep within her, setting her aflame from head to toe and all the places in-between. With time, the edges of the memories had started to fade, the picture turning hazy. The distance caused Lexie to forget the facts surrounding the circumstances because memories are faulty in nature, constantly being reinvented and remodeled, molded into what somebody wants to remember. 

Despite time and distance between now and then, there was a single memory that stands out above the rest, the facts not having yet been distorted by time and the heavy weight of hindsight.

It was Seattle, early in the morning. It is Mark's hotel, not her tiny room in Meredith's attic because things were still new, the tow of them were still fumbling towards figuring out who they wanted to be to one another. It was after Addison's arrival and subsequent departure, around the time Derek starting to doubt himself and his abilities, suffering under the enormous weight of expectations. Addison’s arrival had caused a subtle shift between Lexie and Mark. Lexie had known the story, of course, had compartmentalized all the sordid details. But knowing and seeing were two different things and as she watched almost helplessly as the two of them dealt with the ghosts of their pasts, Lexie realized just how deep Mark's feelings for Addison ran, just how badly the other woman had broken him.

Mark distanced himself from Lexie for the duration of Addison's stay. The rational side of her brain understood that it was because of the case, because of the job, but the irrational side overanalyzed endlessly, mistaking distraction for indifference, looks and touches as romance instead of the friendly overtures they were. The whole situation left Lexie wanting for things they had both decided had no place in whatever _this_ was – intimacy, security, titles. The jealously burned bitter on the tip of her tongue and Lexie wasn't quite sure what to do with it, how to digest and file away the overwhelming feeling of wanting more.

After Addison returned to California there was a pile-up on the interstate that leaves everyone elbow deep in carnage for the entire shift and then some because some guy decided to have too many during his lunch hour and slammed his pick-up into a school bus. It set of a chain reaction and the staff ended up losing more than they saved. Too many of them were children, and Lexie went home with Mark despite her better judgment. Despite the promise she made to herself about not indugling in such things before she had clear definitions for herself as to what she wanted and didn’t want from Mark.

Despite everything within her telling her not to, Lexie went home with Mark, allowed him to calm the mess inside her head with his hands and mouth. After there is pizza and beer – something that was quickly becoming a habit of theirs.

"You were very much in love with her, weren't you?" she asked and regretted it almost immediately, knew the question said too much about how she felt about him.

Mark paused, fingers tightening around the beer bottle between them. "Yeah," he breathed. "I did."

She picked at the crust of her pizza, avoided eye contact, and rubbed her fingers against the hem of his fading t-shirt, the one with the letters of _Columbia_ worn and fading. They left grease stains in their wake.

"Are you sad that you aren't with her?"

Her question was met with silence, the stretch of time that he took to answer wearing her down, the sound pulsating in her ears. His lack of response provided her with answers she wasn't prepared for and her head had started to spin with visions of an ending she only then realized she absolutely did not want.

"No. Not really. Not anymore. I think... I realize now that it was all just to get me here, to now." He looked at her then, his smile unmistakable as he sipped his beer. "I like here."

Smiling back, she sighed quietly in relief. "I like here, too," she said quietly and Mark reached for her, his fingers encircling her wrist, tips of them smoothing over the soft skin where the bones collide.

There was something in the way he looked at her then – open, honest, raw – that moved her, caused something to flutter deep in her belly affectionately.

Over the years memories faded, but she still remembers that night, that very moment with acute clarity.

Some nights, when sleep evades her, she curls into herself and draws the pads of her fingertips over that very same spot, back and forth and imagines him there, with her, and allows it to provide a sort of comfort, a sort of security that helps her finally find sleep.)

 

 

 

When the waitress refers to Lexie as Mark's wife and both of them pause for the same stretch of time and regard each other carefully before rushing to explain, Lexie becomes acutely aware that this whole thing was probably the worst idea in the entire world. Which, okay, Lexie should have figured when she changed her outfit three times before realizing she was over thinking his meaning behind _dinner_. Because, obviously, what Lexie figured – hoped, maybe even wanted him to mean – couldn't possibly be what he actually meant. She talks to Meredith at least once a week. She has heard the tales. Mark definitely hasn't spent the past five years pining for her.

Like the night before, conversation is slow to start. They spend most of the appetizer awkwardly searching for common ground, feeling out which subjects were neutral territory and which ones were better left alone. They talk about Derek and Meredith for a little bit, about the baby they adopted, and how parenthood has seemed to change the both of them for the better. When he asks about her research and the presentation she should probably be preparing for instead of ordering her second glass of wine, Lexie admits that she is prepared, yes, but terrified of stuttering or sounding stupid or not living up to her mentor's expectations. 

Mark smiles at her then, soft and small, like he understands and she supposes he just may. Or, at least he remembers: Lexie fears many things, but failure is the only thing in life she is terrified of.

"You are going through talking points in your head right now, aren't you?" he laughs.

Lexie nods, smiles sheepishly because it is better than admitting the truth: being here with him reminds her of the one thing, above all else, she has never been able to forget. Even before he had a right, Mark knew her. Mark has always understood her in a way she thinks sometimes no one else ever will. It's why he said goodbye, why he let her go without a fight. It took her a while to understand that, to lick her wounds and realize he wasn't the monster it would be so easy to make him out to be, but she does now, and the realization still hits her like a storm years later.

"You're going to be great," Mark tells her. This, she muses, is one of the few differences she notes between the Mark of now and the Mark of then – this Mark is gentler, kinder. "I never doubted that you'd be great," he says softly, the smile spreading across his mouth turning wistful almost, full of possibility.

He reaches for her then, his fingers grazing the back of her hand and in this moment everything feels so right, more so than it ever did before, and it clouds her judgment, makes her weak. For just a moment, she allows herself to believe in the possibility of maybe and turns her hand so her palm flattens against his for the briefest stretch of time before she pulls away. 

 

 

 

After dinner and more than a few drinks, they take a long stroll around the city. As they walk Lexie takes the time to point out a few of her favorite parts of Boston. She shows him where she buys her coffee, the little diner where she orders greasy eggs and home fries after a long shift, the hand-me-down store that offers gently used Jimmy Choo shoes at discounted prices. Mark nods and makes jokes and leans in a little too closely. Lexie buries her hands deep in the pockets of her coat, pulls it closer around herself as the wind picks up. It is nice being here with him, having him close after all this time, but it also threatens to unhinge her completely. 

They talk like they are old friends, and maybe if things had been different, maybe if they were different people it would be the truth. But it’s not and the both of them fumble through the awkwardness for common ground, for a fresh start, and shouldn’t be surprised when it isn’t easy to find. It’s been five years of actively not wanting him, of actively not thinking about him, and having him here, right next to her, causes tiny little fault lines to appear in her carefully constructed exterior. 

The vital truth Lexie has always known, the truth the two of them have always inherently understood is that they will never be friends. There is too much between them, too much history, too much innate knowledge was amassed in the past concerning how the other operates. It isn’t possible for them to be friends – now or ever – because they will always know what it is like to be more, to have more, and that knowledge taints _everything_. 

The further they walk, the closer they near to the proverbial fork in the road they came to the night before. When they arrive at the midpoint between their destinations – where she needs to go left and he right – they pause, stop walking altogether as their arms swing at their sides. Mark reaches up to rub the heel of his hand against his chin, the hard line of his jaw before curling his hands into fists and shoving them deep down in the pockets of his jeans. Lexie does the same, rocks back and forth on her heels, thinks of all the things she wants to say, all the things on the tip of her tongue, and presses her mouth into a thin line to keep from saying them. 

“It’s been really great, Lex, seeing you here. Being with you like this. I just…” Mark trails off, and looks at her, really looks at her the way he used to: with half a smile and his eyes wide, cheek between his teeth. It’s a look she’s seen a million times before, a look she has memorized and filed away, that does things to her knees and heart and has her will starting to fade. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Me, too.” 

Mark reaches for her then, blindly, his warm fingers grazing her cheek, the skin of his palm flattening against her face. Lexie hates herself for leaning in, but she does and it is a nice moment with him smiling at her and her eyes falling closed as she breathes the moment it. 

It only lasts for a few seconds before Lexie pulls away, shaking her head and taking a step backwards, putting some needed distance between them. 

“Look, Mark,” she says, searching for the right words, but none find her. She laughs to fill the silence and Mark does too, nodding a little as he shifts his weight from left to right. 

“Yeah,” he says and his smile shifts to something more somber, to something bittersweet. “Me, too.” 

 

 

 

(This was how it ended: 

“Are you in this?” 

She was slipping her heels off her feet, kicking them into a pile somewhere near his shoes, when he asked her. He stood near the bathroom, shoulder against the door jam, arms crossed over his chest. Mark was quiet, observant, tired in the way he regarded her. She understood. They had all been picking up more shifts, all trying to lighten the loads for the others in the aftermath of George’s death. It was more than that though. It was less than that. Lexie was tired of the thing between them too, the constant game of progression and regression, the tip-toeing they had been doing around each other. 

It was exhausting.

What she really wanted to say was _I need time. I need space. I’m not ready_. All those truths that in a perfect world he would understand, but still sounded so utterly wrong inside of her head. She loved him, she did, and he loved her. It was an innate knowledge imbedded into his every action, every word spoken, but Lexie did not fool herself into believing the knowledge made everything easier. Life had taught her that was not the case. 

They needed to talk about this. For days, they had been pretending his offer did not exist, that the rift – so palpable, so prevalent she could taste it – was non-existent. Even then, in the confines of his small hotel room they had so much between them – age, distance, time – and she wanted nothing more to lessen it. To put things back to the way they used to be. She just didn’t know how and it was one of the few times in her life she was at a complete and utter loss as to how to just keep moving. 

Lexie had these plans. They were pre-designed, a lifetime’s worth of steps on how to get from A to B in perfect, sequential order, and she wanted too much for herself. She wanted stability and structure, a path paved on her own terms. Lexie had never been very good at compromising and it occurred to her that she had never really asked him for his patience, to wait until she was ready to give him the things he was asking for. 

Deep down, Lexie was aware they were way past that point. But she wasn’t willing to sacrifice any more of herself than she already had. 

“I can’t,” she said, lips curling just slightly. “Not now. Not in the way you need me to be.” 

Mark didn’t fight or argue. He didn’t beg her to change her mind. He accepted her decision, respected it, and Lexie had never seen him possess more grace than he did in that moment. 

The Mass Gen offer came shortly thereafter from a friend of a friend she still kept in contact with via emails and holiday cards she always sent a week after the fact. There was an opening, a spot that would have been hers all along if her mother hadn’t died from the hiccups and her father hadn’t fallen completely apart thereafter. 

Lexie took it. 

Seattle would never have been big enough for two Greys and she longed for something more, something to be hers and hers alone so she could pave her own path and not live in the enormous shadow of somebody else.) 

 

 

She isn’t exactly sure how it happens. One moment Lexie is watching him walk away in the direction of his hotel, her heart pounding in her throat, and the next minute she’s saying his name, watching as he stops, turns, and glances in her direction. They stand there for a minute, just looking at each other. It is entirely way too surreal having Mark here, with her, in her city, in this place where she has worked so hard to build her own life separate from him and the person she was when she knew him. Lexie can’t even begin to work out all the feelings that have reemerged because of his presence; she can’t even begin to figure out what it means to have her heart constrict when he’s near her, to have his closeness, his mere presence humming pleasantly under her skin.

Some things, it turns out, never change and Mark’s effect on her, their connection is one of them. 

It is what forces her to put one foot in front of the other and cross the short distance to him. It is what drives her fingers to reach for him, fisting into the fabric of his shirt as she rises on the tip of her toes and pulls his mouth down until her lips can fuse with his. It’s like something right out of the movies, this moment, with her running to him, the people on the street serving as both observers and background music. It is both romantic and messy when their mouths connect and Mark stills almost completely, his sharp inhale popping in her ears. She thinks, for just a moment, that she’s made a mistake, misread the cues, his closeness, his smiles as something different altogether. 

But then his mouth starts to move slowly, cautiously at first like he is testing the water, like he’s trying to get to know her in this way all over again. He murmurs her name and the kiss is lovely and warm, makes her heart stutter and start inside her chest and she finds herself holding her breath, waiting for the moment to pass whilst memorizing it, filing it away so she can remember it after he’s gone. Something shifts, though, around the same time her arms reach to wrap around his neck, her body pressing against his in all the right places, and his mouth turns hungry, desperate, wanton as it fuses to hers over and over again. 

Lexie isn’t sure how it happens, what it means, or even what she is doing, but she doesn’t want to stop to figure it out, doesn’t want to ruin the moment by pulling away so she can gather her thoughts, try to wrap her head around it all. 

All she does know is that she loves the way he holds on to her, his fingers bruising at her hip and nape of her neck like he’s afraid that if he let go, if he loosened his grip she would disappear. She loves the way he kisses her like he is drinking her in, ready to swallow her whole. Mostly, though, Lexie loves the way he kisses her like he knows her, knows what she wants and needs, knows all her deepest secrets and it doesn’t make sense, the two of them now. She knows that. Knows that it has disaster imprinted boldly all over it, but as his tongue flicks against her teeth, and his fingers smooth against the curve of her jaw, she finds she doesn’t care. 

It’s why she pulls away, her lips trailing to the corner of his mouth as she whispers, _take me home with you._

 

 

 

There were reasons that she left Seattle. _Good_ , solid reasons that she recited to herself day in and day out, a mantra of sorts, during those first few weeks in Boston when the adjustment was slow to take. But as Mark’s mouth molds against hers possessively it is solid, warm, and inviting and those reasons are hard to remember. As he whispers her name – just once, the two syllables becoming lost to the weighted sound of his single sigh – it is hard to remember why leaving Seattle was such a good idea. It is hard to wrap her head around all the reasons why she had been trying to make her way in the world with other men by her side, men with all the right intentions, but had no idea to kiss her quite like this. No idea how to make her feel like this. 

Once they’re inside his hotel room, her back hits the door with a sound thud, her smile widening across her mouth as he presses every inch of himself against her, his hands moving everywhere at once. They graze her face, tangle in her hair, skim over the soft skin of her shoulders, her hips, the warmth between her legs. Lexie’s own hands reach up to smooth against his face. The pulse point where neck meets the hard line of his jaw quickens under the tips of her fingertips and she kisses him harder, rougher, the way her tongue flicks against his relaying every intention, every ounce of want she possesses now and always.   
There is a moan, his, and the sound is guttural, and rips right through her. Lexie allows herself to get lost as she swallows it whole, as she revels in the feel of him against her, in the reality of just how much she has missed him and this and _them._

Five years since the last time he had kissed her goodbye at the airport, his voice catching on his _good luck_ and _I’ll miss you_ and all the ways he said _I love you_ without actually murmuring the words. Five years since then and he still tastes the same, still kisses the same, still feels the same. 

Mark still knows all the right buttons to push, all the ways to string her along until she’s begging him for more, until she’s keyed up and right there toeing the edge with just the encouragement of his mouth and hands to push her over. Her body responds in kind. Her right leg wraps itself around his, her lips leaving his mouth to trail down the smooth skin of his neck, teeth grazing that spot she knows he loves, her fingers struggling with the buttons of his shirt furiously just to seek out the warm flesh underneath. His sigh is weighted with content as she finally makes contact. 

They still for a moment, her hands flattening against the smooth skin of his belly, his forehead resting against hers as his fingers fumble with the button on her jeans. The slick sound of a zipper coming undone echoes throughout the quiet room, mixing with the heaviness of their breathing and Lexie watches as Mark presses his eyes shut tightly, continues to rest his forehead against hers and just simply breathes. He chews the inside of his cheek, fights for control. 

“I missed you every single day,” he murmurs. “Thought of you every single day.”

Her breath catches, her sharp inhale sounding something similar to a hiss. The spark, the arousal coils dangerously in the pit of her belly, spreads and hums like a livewire under her skin. She makes a sound that is both needy and desperate, something that constitutes a cross between and whimper and a moan, and slants her mouth towards his, taking it as her own, angling her hips towards his. She says nothing, doesn’t echo his sentiments even though the words are right there, right on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she merely covers his hand with hers and guides it between her legs, inside her jeans and under the damp cotton because she’s older, wiser, and she wants him, all of him. She always has. 

She can feel his grin spread broadly against her mouth, gasps a little as he touches her gently and carefully, teasing. All it does is propel her into action, her hands grasping and clinging, her mouth working tirelessly against his until she has what she wants just within her grasp. Until he’s between her legs, his mouth hot and warm against her neck as her back arches against the cool wood of the door, as fingers dig into the soft skin at her thighs. 

It’s too much all at once, his touch achingly familiar, and it’s over before it even gets a chance to start as she comes with a sigh and his name caught in the back of her throat.


	3. Chapter 3

Lexie wakes first, eyes blinking awake to darkness as she adjusts to her unfamiliar surroundings and remembers. Mark’s body is warm and solid beside her – this is what she notices first. Lexie feels the heat, the warmth, hears the depth and evenness of every breath. As her eyesight adjusts, she watches the rise and fall of his chest, twists her body to rest fully on her side, the weight of her head resting atop her palm as she props herself up on her elbow. She watches him from afar for a long while, traces the dips and curves of his outline, the point of his nose, the angle of his jaw, the hair at his temples that he has finally allowed to turn gray.

It strikes her then, as she counts his breaths and evens her own to match, that while he is still mostly the same person, still Mark in all the ways it matters, there have been changes. They are small, insignificant when placed on their own, but when combined they make all the difference. The Mark of here and now is kinder, gentler. He is not afraid of who he is; he is the man he has always wanted to be – strong, secure, successful – and wears his age like a badge of honor, not a handicap, not something to endure. It makes him all the more attractive to Lexie, and her mouth curls slightly, her mind wandering, a traitor of sorts as she plays the torturous game of _what if_. 

What if she hadn’t left? What if she had stayed? What if she had tried harder? What if she hadn’t been so damn selfish? 

Would it have mattered, or were they always destined to be greater separately than they were together? 

It is a question she asked herself endlessly in those days and months following Seattle. But she has long since taught herself it simply didn’t matter because playing such games never amounted to anything but anguish. They never led to any real, concrete answers. Her chest constricts tightly, and she remembers just why she stopped allowing herself to think of such foolish things – it simply hurt too much. 

Still asleep, Mark reaches for her, his arm sliding across the mattress before colliding with her body, his fingers curling into her skin softly before his palm smoothes against the mattress, the tips of his fingers providing the only physical connection between the two 

Her throat constricts tightly. She doesn’t allow herself to think about why. 

Suddenly it is all too suffocating, the four walls of his hotel room too restrictive. Lexie swallows frantically around the lump in the back of her throat, tastes bile and the salt of her tears and holds herself together just long enough to slide off of the bed without it creaking in protest. She gathers her clothes, sliding them on one by one as she finds them. Her fingers shake as they fumble with the zipper and button her jeans, her thighs aching as she bends to search under the chair for her shoes. 

She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t dare spare him a glance. 

Lexie is hovering near the door, one hand supporting her weight against the side table as the other slides on her shoe when his voice stops her. 

“You should stay,” he says, voice thick with sleep. “It’s late.” Mark shifts, the springs of the mattress shifting under his weight. 

“I have that, uh, presentation tomorrow,” she reminds him quietly. Reaching a hand to hear ears, she checks to make sure she still has both of her earrings, pats the pocket of coat for the outline of her keys. “I need to review, I haven’t really… I’ve been neglecting it, and it’s important, and it’s just not a good time for me,” she tells him. Which is the truth. _Mostly_. 

Her words are met with silence. Still, Lexie doesn’t look at him, but then he murmurs a soft _okay_ and she realizes she doesn’t have to – she can see the look of confusion, the disappointment etched across his face without ever glancing in his direction. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says quietly, and the door clicks shut behind her before she can catch his reply. 

 

 

 

At the elevator, Lexie shifts her weight from heel to toe and back again, her thumb angrily jabbing at the call button once, twice, three times before curling her fingers into fists at her sides. Lexie’s sigh is shaky at best when the doors finally slide open and she half expects Mark to come after her. Moving her arms to cross over her chest, her eyes stay trained on the sight of his door in the distance. Lexie isn’t quite sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when the doors announce their closing with a soft ding and Mark is nowhere in sight. It is a purely selfish thought – wanting him to chase after her even though she left – and she only allows herself to ruminate on it for a brief moment before she goes back to listing all the reasons this can never work. Not now. Not again. 

In the lobby, she keeps her head down, only offering a small smile to the doorman when he slides the door open for her and offers a _hello_ that is jovial despite the hour. The chill in the air nips at her skin, and she pulls her jacket tighter around her shoulders, doesn’t even think twice about heading in the direction of the hospital instead of home. 

The hospital, the OR have always been the places that feel more like home that her apartment, than the house she spent her childhood in and housed the memories – both the good and the bad – she carries with her of her mother, of the family they once were. The hospital usually meant patients, charting, research and other things which easily translate into occupied hands and mind, which is something she has always desperately needed when Mark Sloan is involved. 

It is also where Becca is, and despite the conversation Lexie had with her earlier, the one where she pointedly said _this is none of your business_ , Lexie was in desperate need of making sense of the absolute mess inside of her head and no one was better at that than Becca. Lexie spots her by the nurse’s station; her nose is buried in a chart, and Lexie practically drags her in the direction of the on call room without so much of a _hello_. The words rush out of her mouth in a rush, the whole story of the past two days barely decipherable, the consonants and vowels of her words tangling around each other because Lexie barely stops to breathe. 

When she is finished talking, Becca merely looks at her for a beat, her eyebrows knitted in confusion before she shakes her head and asks, “What?” 

Lexie groans in frustration. “Weren’t you paying attention?” she whines, falling back into a chair with a huff. The heels of her hands rub at corners of her eyes. “The guy from last night? It was Mark. And tonight? I slept with him.” 

Becca’s eyes go wide. “Mark? Mark Sloan? _The_ Mark Sloan? The guy you had to move three thousand miles away from just to get over?” 

“That’s the one.” Lexie hangs her head in shame. 

“ _Wow_.” 

“I know, right?” Lexie laughs, the sound borderline manic, and runs a hand anxiously through her hair. 

“Why is he here? In Boston? More importantly, why didn’t you tell me this morning when I flat out asked you?” Becca sits on the edge of the bed, and does this thing with her tone of voice where it is hard to discern whether or not she is serious or joking. 

Lexie hates it, mostly because she isn’t a very good judge, so she plays the offensive out of habit. “Because, okay? I don’t know… I just… this is so not why I am here, Becca,” she snaps.

“Why are you here then?” 

“For you to tell me what to do,” Lexie tells her, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. 

“What do you want to do?” 

With a glare Lexie rolls her eyes. “Don’t handle me, Bex. Don’t. I’m not a patient, I’m your friend, and I really, really just want you to tell me what to do right now.” 

Becca clicks her tongue and considers Lexie for a long moment, hand moving to her mouth as she chews on the edge of her thumbnail. They have known each other long enough and well enough for Lexie to realize Becca is trying to find the fine line between what Lexie wants to hear and what Lexie needs to hear. 

“Let it go,” is what Becca finally settles on. Lexie’s eyebrows rise in response. “It’s an itch. You’ve scratched it. It’s over. It’s been over, right?” She pauses, looks pointedly at Lexie who just nods weakly. “Nobody can blame you for getting caught up in things, but you can’t turn this into something it’s not because at the end of the day he is going back to Seattle and you are staying here.” 

The truth is harder to hear than she thought. It weighs heavily on her shoulders, presses into her skin. It is hard to hear aloud, but Lexie knows she needed to hear it. Hearing it makes it real, more concrete. Hearing the truth aloud brings to light just how intangible the whole idea of she and Mark truly is. Lexie knows now the reason she didn’t tell Becca about Mark this morning when she had the opportunity was because admitting it aloud somehow made it all the more real, and Lexie quite liked the fantasy of it all. Even if the fantasy was never meant to last. 

“You’re right,” she murmurs, the words tangling around a weighted sigh, but she doesn’t quite believe it. 

 

 

 

She sleeps in fits, with her body curled around a pillow and her head buried under the covers. For the most part, sleep evades her, and when it does find her it is fleeting, the smallest sound managing to jerk her awake. After the fourth siren in less than two hours pulls her back into consciousness, her eyes blink to adjust to the darkness and settle on the red florescent numbers of her alarm clock. She rises before the sun, showers, drinks a cup or two of coffee, and pulls out her notes. Tries to focus on reviewing the highlights of her research, organizing her thoughts so the presentation she has to give in eight hours goes seamlessly. The exercise in distraction fails, and she ends up worrying more about what will happen when she sees Mark again than her presentation. About what she is going to say to him, how she is going to act around him in the aftermath of last night. 

Mostly, she thinks about how she can still taste him, can still feel him, and how hard it is going to be to say goodbye again. 

Lexie misses him already, but tries not to think about that at all. Tries not to think about how she doesn’t have a right to miss him, not now, not ever. Instead, she makes bulleted lists of important points she needs to make sure she hits during her presentation; she drinks coffee and nibbles on a mostly stale bagel to calm her stomach, and starts making a grocery list and a to-do list that starts with going to the grocery store just to calm her nerves. 

All of it fails to occupy her cluttered mind, and as she puts on her nicest suit and picks a pair of sensible heels, she allows herself to remember Becca’s advice and tries to _let it go_. Because that is the smart move, that is the only move available to her in this situation. Lexie knows this. She does. Lexie is acutely aware that despite whatever happened last night, despite whatever feelings may have been born anew because of their lapse in judgment, her and Mark couldn’t work. Not now. Not with him in Seattle and her in Boston. Furthermore, she reminds herself constantly of all the reasons she had left Seattle in the first place: she had wanted her career, to forge her own path completely separately from any outside influences. She wasn’t ready to settle down, to commit to a relationship. Not then, not when there were so many possibilities for the future. 

Those reasons were still valid, she tells herself, even if deep down she knows the truth. 

Normally, she would have stopped by the hospital to check in with her residents before heading to the conference, but despite spending most of the early morning doing nothing of significance, she is running late so she just stops for coffee instead. Lexie buys two cups – one for her and one for Mark. It is her lame excuse of a peace offering, too much foolish hope placed in the gourmet blend with a slight amount of cream and sugar (just the way he likes it, if she remembers correctly and she knows she does) to say all the things she doesn’t know how to articulate into words. Lexie positions herself so she can easily watch the door, eyes scanning the faces of the people coming and going, her fingers tight around her coffee while Mark’s sits on the vacant seat next to her, saving it for him. She is fully aware of just how obnoxious she is being by constantly muttering _this seat is taken_ before people even had the chance to ask, but it is, and the anxiety over his impending arrival hummed under her skin and nipped at raw nerves. 

That anxiety quickly turned into worry and then eventually remorse when ten minutes into the first presentation Mark is nowhere in sight and she is forced to give away his seat to the older gentleman who is eyeing the vacant seat next to her with a rather intimidating amount of intensity. She slides her now empty cup and the full one intended for Mark under chair and tries not to think about just how badly she’s screwed this up, how his absence is more than likely her fault. She allowed things to go too far and took the cowards way out instead of dealing with the repercussions of her actions. She would call him or text him, but then she realizes they never exchanged numbers. It’s possible his is still the same despite all the years even though hers has changed at least four times since then, but she deleted it not long after she left Seattle, when she realized it is hard to call somebody just to make a fool of yourself if you didn’t have their number preprogrammed into your phone.

So, instead she tries to listen to the presentation, but also gives avid attention to the opening and closing of the door, her head turning at the sound of every creek as she looks for him in the face of every sheepish person making a late entrance. 

Mark never shows. 

 

 

 

(After she left Seattle, Lexie had absolutely no intention of going into plastics. She came to associate plastics with Mark, with a time in her life she always knew could never last. She dabbled in other things –pediatrics, trauma, obstetrics – but neuro, she quickly found, was what she had the most passion for.

Lexie had always been smarter than most. She was a quick learner with skilled and steady hands, a photographic memory that categorized and filed everything away. When she was just a wide-eyed, impressionable medical student trying to make her way, teachers would say, _Lexie, you are going places. You could do anything you want, so choose wisely._ It was those affirmations from mere strangers – the ones that echoed her mother's constant murmurings and reminded her of the words she yearned to hear her father say – which drove her to succeed. They forced her not to take the easy way out of anything because they instilled in her one, vital truth: she could do anything. 

Of course, that is where her original fascination with neuro began. Lexie was good at everything. She excelled at all aspects of being a doctor and in all the specialty areas she had to choose from, but neuro was the only field that confounded her at times. The complexities of the brain were not easily compartmentalized and understood no matter how much she read and how much she practiced. Her skill in neurosurgery took time and effort and it was the first instance in Lexie's life where she had to work towards being great at something.

In her post-Seattle haze, Lexie rose to the occasion. She worked harder than anyone. She was determined to be better, to be great. In the back of her head, though, she always knew, really, that her fascination stemmed from something completely separate from her drive to be the best. Deep down, in a place she had tried so hard to bury, Lexie knew it had everything to do with Mark. She knew it had everything to do with trying to separate herself from all the things she associated with him in an effort to move on and simply survive. By the time her residency was drawing to a close, Lexie was completely immersed in the world of neuro – she was a protégé of a surgeon who possessed skills that could rival Derek Shepherd's and had the prestigious Rawlings Fellowship basically sewn up.

But Becca talked her into going on a six-week trip to the Congo that Kessler was sponsoring. Lexie went because the path from A to B had been mapped out and defined in stone and she couldn't help but think why not?

Two things happened during those six weeks in the Congo. The first of which was Becca decided plastics was in no way, shape or form for her. The second was Lexie figuring out that it was exactly where she was meant to be – right in the middle of repairing cleft lips and palates and performing facial reconstructions. Lexie stayed weeks longer than she originally intended, built she also built a relationship with Kessler, allowed his unrivaled amount of knowledge to be passed on to her.

When she returned to Boston, she was inspired. She turned down the fellowship she had worked so hard to obtain and applied for one directly under Dr. Kessler with absolutely no idea as to whether or not it was even obtainable.

Of course, as soon as she turned down the fellowship she wished she could take it back. She hadn't applied anywhere else because she hadn't needed to. It was always going to be Neuro and Mass Gen, but after she met with the neuro department and told them she was politely declining their invitation, she threw up her breakfast as soon as she found safe haven in the nearest restroom because in doing so she may have just ruined her entire future and without a plan B, C, or even D. It was a risk, but she believed it was the right thing to do. 

Kessler told her the fellowship was hers during surgery, a whole two days after the committee had told the applicants they would know the final answer either way. Lexie's nimble and skilled fingers were artfully repairing a cleft palate with the need of little instruction and the words fell between them conversationally, sounding more as if he were asking for a kelly clamp than altering her entire world. Lexie didn't have time to process, to react before he segued into quizzing her on technique and offering subtle critique.

Becca and Jamie took her out after, supplied her with copious amounts of beer and liquor. But her first thought, her immediate reaction once the information had settled and seeped into her consciousness was of Mark. Of how she wanted to call him to murmur _thank you_ quietly over the line for introducing her to a world that would eventually change the very core of hers.

She didn't, of course, but she always knew it said entirely way too much about who he would always be to her.) 

 

 

 

When she left Seattle, it wasn’t just Mark she was leaving. She was leaving her family – her father and Meredith, Molly. While she knew leaving meant the end of her and Mark, and she found solace in the fact that her relationship with her father was always better from afar, there was no way to tell what it would do to her relationship with Meredith. Lexie was all too surprised to find out that with a continent between them, Meredith and she could finally have the sort of relationship Lexie had always wanted – supportive, friendly, sisterly. So when Meredith and Derek moved to Boston to pursue careers at Brigham’s and Harvard respectively, the foundation had already been cultivated and strengthened, and now Lexie and Meredith have developed routines out of coffee dates and Sunday night dinners when their careers weren’t too busy getting in the way. 

They are finally friends, sisters in the true sense of the word. Their father will never permanently leave Boston, likes to revel in his failures more than is healthy, but Lexie and Meredith build their own family, their own life completely separate from the pasts they’ve tried so hard to outrun, and welcome him into it when he visits for holidays. 

Meredith isn’t her first phone call, her first line of defense in matters of her heart (because Lexie knows better than to take advice on how to have a successful relationship from somebody whose marriage started with a post-it and relationship with an affair), but she is usually Lexie’s second, right behind Becca and Jamie. So as soon as the conference breaks for lunch, Lexie has her phone pulled out and Meredith’s number dialed before she is even out the door. 

“This is a really bad time, Lex, can I call you back?” Meredith asks in lieu of a hello, and Lexie takes one look at the coffee cup meant for Mark before tossing in the trash with a little more force than necessary, and ignores Meredith’s plea as she finagles her way through the busy street and heads in the direction of the nearest sandwich shop. 

“I slept with Mark,” Lexie segues and there is a sharp inhale, the sound of movement, and Lexie knows Meredith is moving to some place that isn’t within an earshot of Derek. “And how could you not tell me he was going to be in town? I talked to you Sunday afternoon _and_ Sunday night, and you never once mentioned it.” 

The sound of their front porch door whining open and closing swiftly thereafter echoes in the background. Meredith laughs. “It must have slipped my mind.”

“Or you were planning this.” 

“Planning what? For you to sleep with him? I think you are underestimating the amount of spare time I have on my hands.” 

“Whatever, okay. That isn’t important. What is important is that we slept together last night, and today he is nowhere to be found and I had this whole speech planned in my head for when I saw him this morning, about how this could never work, but he isn’t here and now I feel really shitty about fleeing in the middle of the night –”

“You left in the middle of the night?” Meredith snorts something unladylike. “That’s incredibly mature, Lexie.” 

“Meredith,” Lexie snaps, and if a solid surface were available, her fist would have rapped against it to drive her point home. “Pay attention. That is not what is important here. _Focus_.” 

“Look, Mark is probably just…” Meredith starts, and then stops, and Lexie knows her well enough to realize she is privy to something Lexie isn’t and she is not willing to share. “Look, it is obvious to anyone who knows the both of you that you still love him –”

“I do not –”

“Please.” Meredith draws out the word and Lexie knows she is rolling her eyes. “You do. It’s why you date stupid residents and have relationships that never make it past the third date. And I would bet my last dollar that he feels the same –”

“You don’t know that –“”

“I do happen to have an inside source,” Meredith says, and Lexie’s brain starts going into overload, but before she can start to grill Meredith on just what exactly Derek may have said or not said, Meredith sighs heavily and presses on. “Look, I can’t tell you want to do here. You need to think about what _you_ want to do. Not what makes sense. Not what is practical. But what it is that you want?” 

Lexie stops walking when she comes to a crosswalk, presses the button once, twice, three times while she considers. She thinks about all the reasons she left Seattle – her career, her independence, her fear – and how they stopped being applicable years ago. She thinks about Meredith and Derek and how they are living and breathing proof that having a successful marriage doesn’t translate to an unsuccessful career. 

“I want him to not be three thousands miles between us,” Lexie says honestly. 

Meredith’s sigh crackles over the line. Above her, the white man signals that it is okay to begin walking, so Lexie does and waits patiently for her sister’s guidance. 

“Look, you need to talk to him. You need to be honest with him…and yourself.” 

“How am I suppose to talk to him, exactly? I don’t have his number. I don’t have any way to contact him. I have no idea if I will even see him before he gets on a flight back to Seattle –”

“True, but if you weren’t still looking for an out, you would have asked me for his number.” 

“Would you give it to me if I asked?” Lexie counters. 

“Nope,” Meredith enunciates the words with a smack of her lips. “The conversation you two need to have should be done in person, not over the phone. And certainly not via text. You’re almost thirty. It’s time to stop playing games.” 

“You do realize how ridiculous that sounds coming from you, don’t you?” 

“ _Lexie_.” 

“Fine,” she grumbles, nodding her thanks to the guy holding the door open for her at her favorite sandwich place. She’s hit immediately with the smells of freshly brewed coffee, and has to remind herself that she is already too wired to contemplate ordering more. “I will talk to him. Although I don’t necessary know when, since I have no idea how to contact him.” 

“You’re presentation is this afternoon, right? He’ll be there. Talk to him then.” 

“How could you possibly know that?” 

“I just do,” Meredith laughs, and before Lexie can reply her sister is saying _goodbye_ and Lexie is left standing there contemplating whether or not she wants chicken salad or tuna salad for lunch and just what exactly she is going to say to Mark when she sees him again. 

In the end, she chooses the tuna, and orders another coffee because she’s always been glutton for punishment. 

 

 

 

Dr. Andrew Kessler is a freakishly tall, handsome man that likes to hide his intelligence behind unkempt hair and wrinkled clothes. He is nothing short of a genius and has revolutionized the arena of craniofacial surgery with new techniques and more modernized and simpler procedures. In the past two years, he has started to bestow his knowledge onto Lexie, taking it upon himself to mold her into the surgeon he thinks she should be – not only because of her skill, but also because of her association with him. He's brilliant, but also eccentric. He's on his fifth wife who is tall, beautiful, and younger than Lexie. He listens to the B-side of The Rolling Stone's _Tattoo You_ during surgery, volume on full blast because he says it helps center him. He has a son that chose to study liberal arts instead of the sciences and broke his heart in the process. Lexie thinks that is why he took to her so keenly in the beginning – the disappointment with his son hit around the same time they traveled to the Congo and she would be lying if she said she didn't see him as more than a teacher, but rather a mentor and, on some occasions, even a friend. 

Either way, Lexie knows it doesn't matter: she is where she is because she is good at what she does and anyone can see that.

Kessler could have made a fortune in the private cosmetic sector doing breast reconstructions and nose jobs, but instead chose to focus his talents on more meaningful work. That is what drew Lexie to him, what pushed her towards scrapping her plans and taking a chance without any pre-devised exit strategies or contingency plans.

Lexie is late coming back from their long lunch and Kessler is waiting for her outside the auditorium, bouncing his knee and tapping his fingers on his thigh.

"You're late," he says, not bothering to look up. 

"I'm not late. I am exactly on time." Lexie is twisting the note cards scribbled with her reminders and talking points between her fingers and when he does look up, his attention is directed towards those and not her.

"Those for this?" She nods. "Toss 'em. You don't need them. You could do this lecture in your sleep."

It's a challenge she can see from a mile away, one he probably doesn't even realize he's making, but she takes just in case because Lexie doesn't like to fail at anything. So she merely smiles tightly and shoves the note cards into her purse with slightly unsteady hands. Kessler stands and motions for her to go first, and she does as he follows closely behind.

They're seated in the front way today, their chairs reserved so they have an easier time making their way to the stage when it is their turn to present. Lexie sits there the entire time and reviews talking points and statistics backwards and forwards until they easily roll off her tongue. When it is their turn to take the stage, her hands shake as she walks to the podium. Kessler mumbles something in her direction just before they're within ear shot of the microphone, something along the lines of _just breathe_ , she thinks, but it doesn't matter. The sea of faces loom before her and her palms start to sweat as he begins to talk, the pivotal points and statistics escaping her too easily as she stares at her shoes and tries to remember them.

When she looks up, blinded by the lights of the projector, the first thing she sees is Mark. 

He's in the back of the room, hovering in the doorway because he was late and there weren't enough seats – her presentation is, after all, the heart of the convention, the reason people traveled across the country and sat through three days of somewhat redundant research. He smiles and she counts the lines on his face from memory, remembers the night before, and allows that to center her, to pull her back to here and now.  
　

 

 

 

　  
"I didn't think you were going to make it," she says, reaching to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. It is a nervous habit she’s tried a million times to break.

This is later, hours after when she and Kessler are able to escape the onslaught of impromptu question and answer sessions. Mark stands next to her, still smiling, and Lexie's not sure but she thinks she detects a hint of pride there.

"I wouldn't have missed it," he says.

His fingers hover near the small of her back, guiding her through a crowd of people that have thankfully began to turn their attention elsewhere. Like clockwork, his touch causes something to coil deep within in her, a spark to settle at the base of her spine. She covers the involuntary shiver by glancing at her watch, looking for an escape route because even though she had planned a speech word for word, it’s hard to remember when he’s standing right next to her. Lexie is suppose to meet Kessler and his wife for a late, pseudo celebratory dinner later, but that is hours away. 

They walk for a little bit with no direction, Mark's hands still at home near the small of her back. She needs space, some time, but doesn't know how to ask him for it. A very large part of her wants to simply throw all caution to the wind and spend one last night with him just so she can finally, _finally_ allow it to rest. His flight leaves at nine AM tomorrow and after that the chances of her seeing him again are slim to none.

They walk and Lexie allows memories of last night flow back to her easily, misses him even though he's standing right next to her. She knows it was a mistake, can feel just how wrong it was deep in her bones because he's leaving and she's never going to see him again. After she says _goodbye_ , again, she will have backtracked right to the same place she was five years ago: horribly and ridiculously in love with him but not allowed to have him.

"Lexie –" he starts, and she's not sure how it happens exactly, but the tiny piece of suturing that had been holding her together frays and unravels, leaving her completely undone. She stops right in the middle of the street, turns to face him, and starts talking, the words flowing out of her mouth and her at a complete loss as to how to stop the trainwreck from occurring.

"I left Seattle to be great, Mark. I left to be a great surgeon, to have a great life. The type of life I couldn't have there."

"I know –" He tries to cut her off, but once the words start flowing, Lexie doesn't know how to stop them, doesn’t bother to even try.

"And I have that now, you know? I have a great job. I am training under one of the most brilliant men of his generation and things are going really good for me and I thought that made it worth it. I thought being a great surgeon and having a great life outweighed everything else. And maybe it did. Maybe it does... I don't... I don't know, but then you show up here and you mess everything up and we have last night and it was so perfect and great – you know it was great, ok? – but it's also messing me up. It's just... making me want things again," Lexie stops and pauses to breathe, feels a little out of breath looks around and sees people starting to stare at them. The longer she talks the louder she becomes, and Mark is just standing there, almost dumbfounded, and that alone fuels her even more, pushes her to keep talking. "And that's why I left, Mark. I left because I wanted to be great, I deserved to be great, but also because you made me want for things that I didn't think I was allowed to have."

"Lexie –"

"And it's not fair wanting those things now. Because you're there and I'm here."

Her voice cracks along the edges, just a little, and he reaches for her on instinct, cupping his palm to her cheek. Lexie allows herself to lean in for just a mere moment, allows her eyes to close and her mind to memorize the feel of his touch for after he's gone before she shies away. She is a smart woman and when her guard is down, like it is now, she is fully able to admit what she couldn’t before, that the distance is the heart of the problem now. 

She does not say: _I thought I had figured out how to not miss you. I thought I had figured out how to not love you anymore, but then you showed up and proved me wrong._

"Lexie," he tries again patiently and she murmurs a defiant _what_ as she reaches up to wipe at her eyes. When she looks at him, he's smiling. Mark looks older and grayer than she remembers, but Lexie doesn't care in the least. She counts the lines of his mouth, adores the way his smile reaches his eyes when it's real, when it's honest and not just for show and falls in love all over again despite her greatest efforts. It was always moments like these – the quiet, unassuming ones – that made it so incredibly hard not to love him. "Columbia offered me head of plastics. I'm taking it. They came up to meet with me this morning. I was going to tell you last night, but you..." he trails off, searching for the right word.

"Snuck off?"

His mouth quirks and her mind starts reeling, over thinking and overanalyzing, but as soon as she starts his voice cuts through he fog, his laughter soft as it falls between them. "It's been in the works for months before I even knew I'd see you again," he tells her because he's always known her better than she gives him credit for.

That manages to send her mind spiraling in a different direction, her mouth running ahead of her head as she rushes to say, "Columbia isn't that far. It's only, like, a fifty dollar three hour train ride…" she stops when he starts to laugh and she forces herself to take a deep breath and regroup. 

"I had thought of that actually,” he says, almost guiltily, and it does so much to ease her nerves and stretch them too thin all at once. Mark has been back in her life for less than seventy-two hours and he's already turned it upside down. He has already made her want for all the things she had forced herself to believe she didn't want or need, made her feel things she had forgotten _how_ to feel. Now, she is standing before him on, in the center of a crowded street, planning to work out the intricate details of a long distance relationship.

Lexie thinks about how she’s always loved him in some faraway type of way, how she just got better at burying it as the years went on. How she reconciled her leaving with the promise of greatness, but how things like her successful career and today, which should have been a cornerstone moment of her life, didn’t mean nearly as much as it should have because she didn’t have somebody to share it with. Lexie has always perceived that to be a weakness – the whole needing somebody else to make you feel whole thing. She always thought it had to be one or other, that she needed to choose which was more worthwhile: her professional life or her personal life. 

It’s only now, as he’s standing in front of her and she can no longer outrun the truth, that she realizes she doesn’t have to choose. That she doesn’t _want_ to choose. She is Lexie Grey. She is brilliant and on her way to becoming a world-class surgeon. She wants both, so she will have both. 

Still, she is having trouble figuring which way is up, sort of feels like she's starting to drown on dry land, so she breathes again, counts to five backwards and forwards before speaking once more.

"Can we just, I don't know, start over? I feel like we're really bad at this. We always jump five steps ahead without realizing that those first five steps are pretty crucial in the long run. And if we do this, I want to do it right, Mark, because I can't... I can't go through all that again. So can we just..."

"Go grab a cup of coffee?" he offers and she breathes a sigh of relief and sees it on his face then – he wants this, he's in this, and he's willing to work with her and start over.

"I know this great place," she laughs and they share a smile.

After a short stretch of time, they start to walk again, side by side, his arm swinging near hers. There is an indecisive moment before she reaches for him, finds his hand already waiting, fingers interlacing and holding on. Despite all the words she just unloaded on him, she isn't quite sure how to tell him what she had worked so hard at forgetting: it was always him. It is always going to be him. Lexie wouldn't trade these past five years for anything because they molded her into the type of person who was finally comfortable in her own skin, who could be great both professionally and personally.

As Mark leans in close and presses a kiss to her temple, she thinks, maybe, he already knows.  
　


End file.
